List of most expensive paintings

This is a list of the highest known prices paid for paintings. The earliest sale on the list (Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh) is from 1987, and more than tripled the previous record price, set only two years before, introducing a new era in top picture prices. The sale was also significant in that for the first time a "modern" painting (in this case from 1888) became the record holder, as opposed to the old master paintings which had always previously held it. The current record price is approximately $300 million paid for Willem de Kooning's Interchange in November 2015, perhaps matched by the sale for "close to $300 million" of Paul Gauguin's When Will You Marry? in February 2015.

Background

The world's most famous paintings, especially old master works done before 1803, are generally owned or held at museums, for viewing by patrons. The museums very rarely sell them, and as such, they are quite literally priceless. Guinness World Records lists the Mona Lisa as having the highest insurance value for a painting in history. On permanent display at The Louvre museum in Paris, the Mona Lisa was assessed at US$100 million on December 14, 1962. Taking inflation into account, the 1962 value would be around US$780 million in 2015.[1]

An exceptional case is graffiti artist David Choe, who accepted payment in shares for painting graffiti art in the headquarters of a fledgling Facebook. While his shares were of limited value when he was awarded them, by the time of Facebook's IPO they were valued at around $200m.[3]

Van Gogh, Picasso, and Warhol

Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and Andy Warhol are by far the best represented artists in the list. Whereas Picasso and Warhol became wealthy men, Van Gogh (supposedly) sold only one painting in his lifetime, The Red Vineyard, for 400 francs (about $1800 in 2011) to the impressionist painter and heiress Anna Boch.[4] His seven paintings in the list below alone were sold for over 723 million current dollars.

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Sale of the Most Expensive Paintings

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List of highest prices paid

This list is ordered by consumer price index inflation-adjusted value (in bold) in millions of United States dollars in the current year.[note 1] Where necessary, the price is first converted to dollars using the exchange rate at the time the painting was sold. The inflation adjustment may change as recent inflation rates are often revised. A list in another currency may be in a slightly different order due to exchange rate fluctuations. Paintings are only listed once, i.e. for the highest price sold.

See also

Notes

↑ The wikipedia template uses a yearly average inflation. Using monthly averages gives slightly different numbers, most significantly for paintings sold early or late in a year with significant inflation.

↑ Depending on whether its price exceeded that of When Will You Marry?; neither painting's sale price is publicly known.

↑ Exact price unknown, but described by The New York Times as "close to $300 million."

↑ Depending on whether its price exceeded that of The Card Players; neither painting's sale price is publicly known.

↑ Exact price (even the currency of sale) is not known, with estimates from $259 million to even $300 million

↑ Reportedly, Gachet's portrait was privately resold to a European buyer in 1997 or 1998 for $65-$90 million through Sotheby’s[20][21]

↑ The triptych had probably been reassembled by the Italian collector Francesco De Simone Niquesa, but were resold to a person in the US before 2013[22][23]

↑ This is the small version of the painting; the large version is at Musée d'Orsay.

↑ The paintings transferred to the dealers include a late Monet entitled Corona (Water Lilies) from around 1920; Renoir's Reclining Nude of 1902, Kandinsky's Autumn Landscape, Murnau from 1908, and Picasso's Striped Bodice from September 1943.

↑ Alan Bond could not pay off the painting, and Irises was resold (probably for somewhat less) to the Getty Museum.

↑ Steve Wynn, who bid on the painting at auction, privately acquired the work several months later from the unidentified buyer for an undisclosed, supposedly lower price. Kenneth Griffin acquired it in 2004 from Wynn.[58]

↑ Usually estimated at "over €50 M" or "between 50 and 60 million Euros". $75M would have been €53M on July 12, 2011.

↑ A Belgian banker and collector who bought it in 1939 for $18,000. His was the last name on the 1988 provenance list; painting came from "a private collection in Arizona"

↑ Son of Daniel (conductor & cellist) and Eleanore Saidenberg who were Picasso's New York dealers from 1955 to 1973.[80]

↑ On Oct. 7, 2005, The New York Times reported that Steven Cohen bought van Gogh's "Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat" and Gauguin's "Bathers" (1903) from Steve Wynn for approximately $110 million,[82] though guesses range from $100-150 million. One or both of the paintings may thus occur higher on this list.